Necklace of Rope
by edmundblack
Summary: /Then he took Helena's offered hand, and walked forward, chin held high, and pretended, just like everyone else./ Voldemort wins! AU. Ten years later, he is one of the leaders in a golden age. But does anyone want to live like that?


**For the New Year's Resolution Challenge – Write a Voldemort! Wins AU ($250). For the Greek Mythology Challenge (Write about Draco Malfoy). For the Hunger Games Trilogy Challenge – Career Pack (Write about Pureblood Supremacy)**

As Draco dressed in the mirror, buttoning up his shirt to the very top, he knew that he was one of the lucky ones. Most of the Death Eaters had greyed, and refused to come out of their mansions with their elderly lives and children his own age. Sure, Draco hadn't been a very _good_ Death Eater, but he'd been on all the same, and when the prizes were given out, he'd risen to claim them.

"Daddy!" It was the cry of the twins, the twins he was only allowed to have because he'd killed people. Scorpius and Helena, Scorpius resembling his father perfectly, and Helena a perfect mix of both her parents, his beautiful children, free to run and play and live because of death. He scooped one of them up in each arm, kissing them on the forehead, before turning around and ducking out the door. His wife, Astoria, stood tall and proud in a silky pink frock, and she smiled at her husband. _The Lucky Ones. _They'd chosen this, they hadn't been forced under the new regime, and tonight they were going to flaunt that.

"Are you okay, Draco?" Astoria asked, folding her arms and frowning. "I know tonight is going to be rough."

_It was going to be rough. _He knew that. Ten years after the final battle, where Harry Potter was killed and the massacre began, when the Death Eaters stormed Hogsmeade and they were the only ones alive. Eight years since they found Hermione Granger, who had been hiding in Bulgaria with the legendary Seeker, Viktor Krum, who was still rotting in Azkaban. Four years since Luna Lovegood and Neville Longbottom had been given pardons, and drafted in to the new regime against their will.

"I'll be fine," He said, trying to convince himself more than her. Astoria was also lucky – the Greengrass family had remained neutral, but at the time, before their trial and before the confirmation of everything else and the official announcements, Daphne had gotten herself engaged to Theodore Nott and Astoria to Draco. The two girls had saved themselves, and their father, and all was well.

Tonight, there would only be one non-pureblood, one half-blood, who went by the name of Lord Voldemort and was the ruler of the entire Wizarding Britain. Tonight was also, as only Draco knew, the night they declared war on the muggles, after years of open slaughter. He held his children closer.

"Tonight will be fun!" Scorpius shouted, grabbing his mother's brown locks and tugging on them playfully. Astoria raised a singular eyebrow at her son, but said nothing about it. Draco shifted his son off of his hip into his mother's arms, and he seemed to like that better. Meanwhile, Helena climbed up onto her father's shoulders, looking very similar to her mother in a pink dress and brown locks tied up above her head. It was her face where the similarities to her father came in – a pointed chin and icy blue eyes.

"Maybe," Astoria chewed in her lip in deep thought, waving her wand in a circle and summoning a clock. "It's seven twenty-five, Draco, we should get going." Luckily the twins were old enough to side-apparate. He lifted Helena off his shoulders, kissed Scorpius on the forehead, nodded at Astoria and then gripped Helena's hand tightly, swirling away in a cloud of darkness.

He arrived in the foyer at the Ministry of Magic, as did many others, and as he waited for his wife his gaze fell upon the now-huge statue in the center of the foyer. Muggles, naked muggles all stood, bowed, carrying the words 'Magic is Might'.

_Harry Potter was dead, and that giant oaf carried him out. The Weasley girl screamed, and Granger and Ron fell down to their knees. Draco simply could not believe it. All those years of bickering and teasing and now the boy was dead, numb as a child in Hagrid's arms. And despite himself, his fingers shook because he never wanted the boy _dead, _not really – he just didn't like him. But his mother clutched his shoulder tightly, and the sun rose over the Scottish hills. Astoria was somewhere in that crowd, Draco knew, and for that he was worried. He had to get her over here, as quick as he could, because he knew all those students on the opposite side would be killed or sentenced to Azkaban for treason. Everything was silent, except for the Weasley girl's screams, and eventually one of brothers dragged her away. The mudblood and Ron still cried, on their knees, hands and faces bleeding, and Longbottom stood at the front of the crowd, a sheet of anger across his face, still holding the Gryffindor sword high and proud._

"_We'll still fight!" He yelled, with an exhausted army behind him, "Don't think you've won!"  
>It was too late, and Draco turned away. <em>

His wife appeared next to him, and saw his worried look. Scorpius and Helena grinned at each other, completely oblivious.

"Look!" Helena cried suddenly, pointing ahead, "It's some _muggles_,"

"Ew!" Scorpius scrunched up his nose. Admittedly, Draco didn't think much of muggles either – but he was one of few who knew that those weren't just statues, and it wasn't just muggles that had been murdered and put in the stone cases. He knew some of those faces; Flinch-Fletchey, and Hannah Abbott, two Hufflepuffs from his grade, one of them a pure-blood, both rebels, with their faces and naked bodies twisted grotesquely. He saw the body of one of Astoria's classmates, Janette Parkinson, who had betrayed her family. Another pure-blood.

"Come on," Astoria said to each of her children, taking their hands and looking straight ahead, not properly seeing the statue. Draco did, though – as part of his 'reward', Lord Voldemort had made him part of the group that made those statues. He remembered the screams. And then he took Helena's offered hand, and walked forward, chin held high, and pretended, just like everyone else.


End file.
